Bad Men (2003) (47 page)

He reached out to Marianne, lifted her up by the arm, and started to guide her toward the bedroom. Danny tried to hold on to her, but Dexter’s hand kept him rooted to the couch.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to see you again,” he whispered. He grabbed her left breast and squeezed it painfully. “Look upon this as a conjugal visit.”

Marianne tried to pull away from him. Instead he thrust her forward, sending her staggering into the hallway.

“There was a time,” said Moloch, “when you used to beg me for what I’m about to give you.” He pushed her against the wall, the length of his body pressed hard against her, and clasped her cheeks in his hands, forcing her mouth into the shape of a kiss. He composed his own features into an expression of sadness.

“Maybe you’ve just forgotten the good times,” he said. “You know, I can promise you that in all the years we’ve spent apart, I’ve never been with another woman.”

He forced his mouth over hers. She struggled, making small moans of disgust against his lips. Then her body began to relax, her mouth now working along with his. His hand relaxed its grip upon her cheeks.

Marianne bit him hard in one single movement of her jaws, almost severing his bottom lip, her teeth meeting where they cut through the flesh. Moloch howled. He hit her across the side of the head with his fist and she tumbled to her right, falling against a small table and sending a bowl of fresh-cut flowers crashing to the ground.

Danny screamed.

Moloch held his hand to his wounded mouth, cupping the blood that was pouring from the cut. He stared at himself in the hall mirror, then looked down at Marianne. His words were distorted as he tried to talk without moving his ruined lip, but she understood. They all did.

“I’m going to cut you for that,” he said. “After I’ve fucked you, I’m going to cut you to pieces. And then I’m going to start on the boy.”

He took his knife from his belt, flicked the blade open, then advanced on her. He caught her by the hair and began to drag her down the hallway, Danny screaming all the time, Jack struggling against his bonds.

Then the sliding doors exploded and blood shot from Dexter’s chest. He tried to turn, and a second shot sent him sprawling into the fireplace. He rolled away from the red glow of the ashes. A third shot hit him in the small of the back, and he finally lay still.

Willard entered through the ruined glass, shards crunching beneath his feet.

“Y’all look surprised to see me,” he said.

Joe Dupree was almost within sight of Jack’s house when he heard the shots and the shattering of glass. Marianne’s house had been empty. He figured that she must have taken Danny over to Jack’s. He was approaching the house from the west, so the big windows were on the opposite side and he could not see what was transpiring inside.

He tightened his grip on the shotgun and began to circle the house.

Moloch smiled at Willard.

“I knew you’d make it,” he said.

Willard looked confused.

“You told them to kill me.”

Moloch shook his head. “No, that was Dexter’s decision, and he didn’t tell me about it until we were in trouble. I wanted to kill him for it, but by then I needed all the help I could get. There’s something on this damn island, something that wants us all dead, and we need to stick together if we’re going to get off it alive.”

Willard looked at the older man, and Moloch could see that he wanted to believe him. Whatever love Willard had for anything in this world, he had for Moloch.

“You hadn’t killed Dexter, I’d have killed him myself once we got to land. I won’t shed tears for him.”

Despite the agony of his lip, Moloch tried to seem compassionate and concerned about Willard’s own pain. It appeared to work. The gun, trained on Moloch, wavered, then fell.

“Thank you, Willard,” said Moloch.

Willard nodded.

“Where we at?” he asked.

Moloch shook Marianne hard, by the hair. “My wife and I were about to make love, but now I’ve decided to go straight to the afterglow.”

“What happened to your mouth?”

Moloch smiled, his teeth red. “Love bite,” he said, then looked to Jack. “You got a first-aid kit?”

“In the kitchen, under the sink.”

Moloch inclined his head toward the kitchen. “Go in, see what you can find for my mouth,” he told Willard.

Willard took one last look at Dexter, lying unmoving on the floor, then headed for the kitchen, tucking his gun into his belt. The only sign of doubt he exhibited was his reluctance to turn away from Moloch. He was still looking back at him as the kitchen door swung closed on its hinges, hiding him from the view of those in the living room, and Joe Dupree’s great hand closed around his throat. Willard tried to reach for his gun, but the giant’s left hand plucked it from its belt and laid it gently on the top of the refrigerator.

Willard’s feet began to rise from the ground. He tried to make a sound, but Dupree’s grip was too strong. He kicked out with his feet, hoping to hit the walls or the door and alert Moloch, but the giant held him in the very center of the large kitchen, away from anything that might allow Willard to give his presence away. Willard stretched for the giant’s face, but his arms were too short. Instead, he dug his nails into the Dupree’s hand, tearing and gouging, even as he felt his eyes bulging from his face, his lungs burning. Spittle shot from his mouth, and he began to shudder.

Then the giant’s grip tightened, and the small bones in Willard’s neck started to snap.

Outside, Moloch’s head turned sharply toward the kitchen.

“Willard?” he called. “You okay in there.”

He discarded his knife. Keeping a grip on Marianne’s hair, he drew his own gun. He pressed it hard against her temple, moving her slowly toward the living room. He saw Jack look to his right, the boy too. Moloch risked a look around the corner.

The female cop was standing at the ruined window. Her gun was raised. She fired. The glass on the painting closest to Moloch’s head shattered.

At the same instant, Dupree emerged from the kitchen, his great bulk filling the doorway as he crouched slightly to enter the room. Moloch instantly drew Marianne up to her full height and forced her against him, using her body as a shield, the barrel of the gun now pushed hard into the soft flesh beneath her chin. Only Dupree could see him. Macy stood uncertainly at the window. Moloch adjusted his line of sight so that he could see the hall mirror and Macy’s reflection in its surface.

“Peekaboo,” he said. “I see you. You stay right there, missy.”

Dupree remained still, the shotgun pointed at Moloch. The two men confronted each other for the first time, brought together by forces neither fully understood, and bound together by circumstances barely recognized: their shared knowledge of the woman who stood between them; their links to the island and its strange, bloody heritage; and finally, their own curiously similar situations, for they were both men out of place in the world and only Sanctuary could hold out to them a promise of belonging.

“Let her go,” said Dupree. “It’s over.”

“You think?” said Moloch. “I reckon it’s just beginning.”

“Your people are all dead, and you’ll never be allowed to leave this place. Let her go.”

“Uh, no. I don’t think that’s going to happen. My wife and I have just been reunited after a long absence. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Moloch jerked Marianne’s head back and, despite the pain that it caused him, kissed her cheek, leaving a bloody smear on her skin.

“I bet she didn’t tell you about me. I’m shocked. People got to be honest right from the start, otherwise what hope is there for two lovers in this world?”

Marianne kept her eyes away from Dupree, afraid to look at his face. To her left, she could see Macy, her gun moving as she waited for Moloch to make himself a target for her.

“Yeah, I know all about you and my wife. I don’t like a man who milks through another man’s fence, no matter what he’s been told, but I’m inclined to forgive you. After all, she used you.”

Dupree couldn’t hide his confusion.

“What did you think, that she was
attracted
to you, you fucking freak? This isn’t beauty and the beast. This is real life. She took us both for a ride, but hey, don’t beat yourself up over it. She’s smarter than I gave her credit for, and there’s no denying that she’s a looker. Not for too much longer, maybe, but right now most men would give a lot to split this particular piece of white oak. She used you, used you as a lookout, an early-warning system so she could take off with my money when the time came.”

Marianne tried to speak, but the gun pressed so hard into her skin that she felt sure it would push through into her mouth. Now, at last, she allowed herself to stare into Dupree’s face as she tried to communicate with him, to express her shame, her regret, her fear, and her feelings for him.

They’re lies. He’s telling lies. I never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all you
.

“She’ll try to deny it, but it was there in her head. I know her. Hell, I was married to her for long enough, and she still fucked me over. Maybe she even thought that you might protect her if things went wrong. Well, she was right about that much at least, because here you are.”

In the mirror, Moloch saw Macy attempt to move off, making for the front door to cut off another line of escape. “Missy, I said I could see you. You move another fucking inch and I’ll blow my bitch wife’s brains all over the ceiling.”

Macy stopped.

“Put the shotgun down,” Moloch told Dupree. “You can get rid of the Smith on your belt as well. I won’t even waste my time counting to three.”

Dupree, against all his instincts, did as he was told, laying the shotgun down gently on the floor, followed by his Smith & Wesson.

“You too, missy,” said Moloch. He kept his back to the wall so that he could see Macy clearly. She didn’t move.

“You think I’m fucking with you? Do it!”

Macy began to lower the gun slowly as Moloch’s attention flicked back to Dupree.

“Look at you,” he said. “You’re a freak, a giant pretending to be a knight in shining armor. But you don’t read your fairy stories, Mr. Giant.”

The gun moved suddenly from Marianne’s face, its barrel now pointing at Dupree.

“At the end of the story, the giant always dies.”

He pulled the trigger, and the policeman’s throat blossomed like a new flower.

It seemed to happen slowly for Joe Dupree. He thought that he could almost see the bullet as it moved, tearing a path through the cold air. It entered his skin in tiny increments, fractions of inches, ripping through flesh and bone, exiting just to the right of his spine. He fell backward through the kitchen door, coming to rest close to Willard’s body. He tried to breathe, but already his throat was flooding with blood. The kitchen door was held open by his feet and he saw Marianne spin and strike at Moloch’s injured mouth, then throw herself against him in an effort to dislodge his gun. He saw Macy moving through the living room, her gun extended, her face turning in horror toward him. He watched Moloch push Marianne away, then run for the door, firing as he did so, his wife scrambling for the cover of the corner as the bullets sent plaster and paint flying from the walls.

Then he was gone, Macy uncertain whether to follow him or tend to her wounded comrade. She ran to Dupree, limping slightly, favoring her right foot.

“Stay with me, Joe,” she began. “We’ll get help.”

He reached out, took her shirt in his hand, then pushed her away.

Still she paused. He could not speak, but he pointed his hand in the direction of the fleeing man. She nodded and headed after Moloch, stopping just once to look back at the dying policeman.

Marianne came to him. She was crying. The boy was behind her, staring at the two men on the kitchen floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

She tried to remove her coat in order to lay it on him, but he gripped her hand and brought it instead to his lips.

“No,” she whispered. “We have to keep you warm.”

But then she registered the blood spreading behind his head, flowing from the exit wound hidden from them, and she knew.

“No,” she repeated, softer now. “Don’t do this.”

The giant coughed and began to spasm. She tried to hold him down but his great weight was too much for her. His body jerked as he clawed at the floor, an irregular clicking noise emerging from the back of his throat.

Then the spasming stopped, and Joe Dupree’s eyes widened as he died, as though in sudden understanding of the nature of this world.

Moloch ran.

He was conscious of movement around him—branches whipping in the wind, dead leaves pirouetting, and the shapes that lingered at the limits of his perception, not caring now whether he noticed them or not, merely content to shadow his progress through the forest. There was blood on his shirt and face; he could feel it cooling upon him in the night air. His lip ached, the pain like needles in his mouth each time he drew a breath. He heard the sounds of pursuit coming from behind and knew that the female cop was coming after him. He thought of all that he wanted to do to the woman, all of the hurt that he desired to inflict on her and on his wife. At least he’d put an end to the big cop. That was something.

His head struck a broken branch, almost severed by the actions of the storm, and he cried out as he fell back against the tree. When the pain in his mouth and head had subsided, he took a breath and stumbled along a narrow pathway that wound through a patch of marshland, until finally he found himself in a clearing in the middle of the forest. Low stones lay half buried in the ground and a simple stone cross stood at its center. He moved slowly forward until he was facing the monument. It was still possible to read the names on it, and he found his hand reaching out to trace the letters, his bloodied finger outstretched. He touched the stone and—

Men. Forest. Shooting. Women.

Woman.